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Outsourcing to Argentina – The Definitive Guide

Since 2002 Argentina has greatly evolved as a software development hub. The benefits of outsourcing to Argentina are similar as to other traditional offshore locations like India, Asia, México or East Europe.

Universities are Free.

In Argentina you will find a highly educated workforce. This is because education is totally free from kindergarten to university. There are many free universities and in the last 20 years many public universities have been created in the most important cities of the country. This allows for people whose parents hardly could end high school, to become university graduates.

According to data from 2014, 4.5% of population attends to university and 3.5% is in public universities.

But there are other important universities in almost every big city in the country; many have been created in the last 20 years.

There are other universities specialized in tech areas like the one where I studied. This is the case of Universidad Tecnológica Nacional (UTN). This university specializes in technology areas like electronics, computer science and systems among others.

Competitive costs

Argentina is not the cheapest offshore location, but you will still find very competitive costs. The costs of living (renting and food) are significantly lower than other big cities in the world. The relation between quality and price will be very good.

For example, you can find freelance developers in Buenos Aires starting at 2500 USD per month. You can still find cheaper, but less experienced.

Costs in other cities could be even more competitive. For example, cities far from Buenos Aires, specially in the North of the country have all very good universities and produce very good professionals.

However, most of the tech companies only seem to look at Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Rosario, leaving a lot of talent undiscovered.

Some cities you should have in your radar are Salta, San Salvador de Jujuy, Resistencia, Corrientes, Posadas or Tucumán. All in very competitive areas and all served with very good universities.

There many many others, but these cities are among the ones who hasn’t been fully discovered yet as excellent tech hubs although they have everything needed to make it happen.

Moreover, many students from cities where there is no University

English

Argentina has the highest level of english proficiency in Latin America and ranks #19 in the world, according the the EF English Proficiency Index.

Apart from English, other languages are very popular in Argentina. There are very good institutions to study italian, french, portuguese and german, among the most populars.

Culture and Environment

Argentina is a mix of cultures. The country was colonized by Spain in the year 1536. Since then, a lot of immigrants have settled in this country mainly from Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Germany and many from neighbour countries as well, among others.

Buenos Aires, its capital city is also often recognized as the Paris from South America. Stunning architecture, cosmopolitan atmosphere, the latest fashions and trends and intimate side walk cafes make the biggest city in the country a magnet for travellers as well.

Argentina has other environmental and safety advantages: it is far from war or military conflict zones, extreme natural events like tornados, hurricanes or earthquakes are very uncommon and it is not a target for terrorism.

Discussions and Ideas

If dealing with an offshore service provider you only hear “yes, sir”, that’s not going to be the most common case when dealing with an argentinean.

Argentineans are passionate and love to have their opinions and suggestions considered. They are more self confident and honest. Unlike other offshore providers, an argentinean will also say “no” when it’s no.

If your current developer always says “yes” and then he is apologizing all the time, you will notice the difference with an argentinean.

Argentineans love to get involved in the planning and discovery process when defining your projects or the features for your project. Argentineans will probably argue with you and propose you different ways of doing things. I strongly believe that’s a characteristic you will always want to find in any kind of worker.

If your developer, from wherever she or he is, doesn’t appear to be like this, it doesn’t mean he will not be good, but you will have to hire someone else to supervise or to help you define your requirements before assigning the work.

If you have any other topic you would like to know about outsourcing to Argentina, please leave a comment below or write to marcelo@centraldev.com.ar.

Marcelo has been working as a software developer for more than 15 years. He has participated in projects for companies in USA, Mexico, Argentina, Europe and Africa. He is skilled with Microsoft technologies such as ASP.NET, MVC, C#, WCF and SQL Server, among others.